The Weight of a Question
by FireOnHigh
Summary: A young girl asks her mother the question that she has wanted an answer to her whole life- and it will change both of them forever: "Who is my father, Mum?" Rated M for semi-mature scenes (nothing too graphic, though). Please Read and Review, and follow the story if you enjoy it.
1. Chapter 1

"I have a question," the young girl murmured to her mother.

"What is it, sweetie?" she asked her daughter, pulling her into a hug and ruffling her hair playfully.

"Do I have a father?" From the hesitation in her voice, it was clear she was reluctant to bring the subject up with her mother.

"Of course! Everyone has a father- if you aren't cloned, that is, or from a species that doesn't require a male and female to reproduce," she amended. Her daughter nodded thoughtfully and seemed satisfied, but the girl's mother knew better. A hint of sadness glistened in the depths of her bright green with a hint of brown eyes, so much like her father's that the older woman felt a painful tightening in her throat, accompanied by the sting of tears in her eyes. "Darling, why do you want to know?"

"It seems like everyone I know has a father in their life, or at least knows who he is." The girl paused, the contemplative look on her delicate features at odds with her age. Age is only a number, the woman quickly reminded herself. After all, the girl's father had been much older than her when they had gotten married. "Was he ashamed that you had me?"

Her mother's heart gave a pained squeeze. "No, sweetie, not at all. Never think that."

"Is he dead then, Mum?" Her voice rose slightly; she was trying to learn about the father she had never known, and while her mother wasn't hindering her, she also wasn't helping. She was unaware of the sudden glow of hope in her eyes- clearly she wanted closure, no matter how painful it might be.

"Not as far as I know, and believe me, I would know if he was dead." For just a moment she let herself imagine being in her husband's arms, reflecting on the few precious days they had spent together.

He had been rather scrawny and had a very ridiculous taste in clothes, but all of that had disappeared when they were alone. He would run his hands through her hair, gently pulling individual curls straight and watching with fascination as they sprung back into place, almost with a mind of its own. "You have the most beautiful hair," he would breathe as he nuzzled her jaw and trailed kisses down her throat.

"Is that all you like?" she had challenged half-seriously, planting her hands firmly on her hips.

"I see what you tried to do there!" he exclaimed, pulling back slightly. "You were trying to get me to say something stupid."

"Not that you need any help with that, sweetie."

"Rubbish! I am many things, stupid not being one of them."

She gave a throaty laugh and fell backwards onto their bed. "Prove it."

The rest of the memory was fractured into hints of sounds and feelings: the sensation of her husband's gentle hands as they skimmed her skin under her shirt and eventually removed that item of clothing, the soft sighs of passion that they both uttered, and the warm, hazy, golden afterglow of sex. "Now I see why this is called the snog box," she had whispered directly into her husbands ear; they were so tangled together that they could hardly tell where one began and the other ended. Her husband surprised her by laughing out loud, a strange, careless laugh unlike anything she had heard him do before.

"I think your mother might have said that to your father after you were conceived."

She twisted in his arms and glared directly into his eyes. They were so close that their noses brushed and she could feel his gentle puffs of breath on her cheek. "What...?"

"Penny's in the air," he answered a little mockingly, borrowing a phrase that seemed to belong in another life of hers. When realization struck, he finished," I think the penny had hit the ground."

"Tell me that this isn't the same bed I was conceived in," she ordered. "Is it the same bed?"

"Of course it isn't the same one!" He looked surprised at the question. "How could I have a swimming pool and a fully stocked library but only one bedroom?"

She relaxed visibly into her husband's arms, falling into a contented state of almost sleep. She smiled when he buried his face into her mane of hair and took a deep breath. "I wish we could just freeze this moment and stay here forever."

"Me too," she replied wistfully. "But what about those people counting on you to save the day? You can't just let them down, now can you, sweetie?"

"For you, I would," he replied, so softly that she thought she had imagined it.

The sound of her daughter's voice brought her out of the past like a cold bucket of ice water. "Will you at least tell me about my grandparents, then?"

"Dead, on my side," she replied frankly. She had made it a practice to speak frankly to her daughter and never mince words. "Your father never told me about his parents, but I know that they were dead long before he met me."

"Thank you, Mum, for telling me." She gave a cordial nod, her manner unintentionally cold, and made as if to head out the door of their tiny apartment. "I'll go get groceries," she announced in a civil, though remote, tone.

Words began to spill out of her mother's mouth seemingly of their own accord. "I named you after my mother."

"Evalin was your mum's name?"

"No- Amelia. Your middle name."

A look of wonder crossed her features and for an instant, her mother caught how much she resembled her father. "I didn't know I had a middle name. Evalin Amelia Song is my full name?" she asked, rolling the words in her mouth as if tasting them.

"Yes, sweetie." River Song felt strangely freed after telling her daughter her full name, and decided she could deal with telling Evie more secrets in the future. "On your fifteenth birthday, I'll tell you everything."

"Seriously?" Evie was plainly taken aback that her mother would go from so reticent to being willing to talk freely about her father. "That's the same year you promised me a Vortex Manipulator like yours. This isn't an either or deal, is it?" She seemed to deflate a little as she counted the time in her mind. "Seven years, Mum!"

"You aren't ready for all of the knowledge yet, Evalin. At fifteen, you'll be mature enough to accept what I'm going to tell you and be ready to start to time travel by yourself." River was surprised to see her daughter nod in agreement.

"Deal. I'll hold you to it, though."

"Sweetie, I hope you do." She pulled Evie back into her arms for another hug. "You make me so proud. I know that you are going to grow up to be a good woman."

"Just like you, Mum. I'm going to be just like you," Evalin promised solemnly, her eyes grave and serious. She put one hand over her heart as she made the vow; the girl had never felt more certain of anything in her life than the words she had just said.

River felt tears blur her vision, which she hastily blinked away. "Be better than me. That is all I ask."

**A/N: Please review and tell me what you think of my first chapter! I am working industriously to get the next two chapters up soon. Thank you very much for reading my first Doctor Who fanfic!**


	2. Chapter 2

"Happy fifteenth birthday, Evalin!" River embraced her lanky daughter who had somehow grown several inches taller than her. Evalin's body had shed its childhood chubbiness for a figure that seemed the perfect meld of her father's slimness and her mother's curves. She had let her dark brown hair, highlighted with a few strands of bright auburn, grow to her waist, where it curled wildly, seemingly beyond control.

"Thank you, Mum!" Anticipation, pure and almost childlike gleamed in her blue eyes, the exact shade as her father's, as she took the small square package from her mother's hands. "What can it be?" she mused, gently shaking the carefully wrapped box.

"You'll need to open it to find out, Evie."

She flashed her mother the cocky grin she almost always wore on her angular face. Without further ado, she drew the knife she kept hidden at her waist and deftly sliced open the wrappings.

"A Vortex Manipulator! Just what I wanted!" A hint of sarcasm lurked in Evie's deceptively bright tone. It wasn't that she did not want the present; on the contrary, she had desired owning it since she was a small child. Travel through time and space seemed to call to her, as if the stuff of the cosmos ran in her veins instead of blood. She just wanted to be shocked by something she had not been waiting for since childhood.

So it came as a total surprise to her when River pulled what appeared to be a matched set of medallions, each on a heavy chain, from one of her many pockets.

"What's this, Mum?" Evie asked curiously as she buckled the Vortex Manipulator almost absently to her right wrist. The device seemed to be a newer, more compact model than her mother's was.

"I had the Sages of Sh'Ni'Nahl make us tracking pendants. No matter where we are in space and time, we'll always be able to find each other. The pendants will also tell you if I'm in danger or hurt and vice versa."

"I didn't even know that the Sages were anything more than legend, and yet you tracked them down and commissioned these from them." She held her pendant close to her eyes and studied the strange pattern of circles and lines closely.

River smiled enigmatically. "Let's just say that they owed me a favor."

"Oh, I don't doubt that for a second, Mum. Everyone seems to owe you a favor. So, how do these work?" Evie continued a bit absently as she turned the object over and over in her hands.

"Inside the medallion is a piece of me. I chose to use a strand of hair, but a drop of blood or anything else personally connected to me would have worked just as well."

"And the writing on it- what does it mean?"

"You can't read it?" She was surprised; her daughter had an inborn talent for deciphering other languages that went beyond strange into the nearly impossible.

"It's like nothing I've tried to translate before," Evie admitted.

"Have you ever heard of Gallifrey?" River began.

"The home world of the Time Lords, right? But what have to do with our pendants?"

River slid the chain of her necklace over her head and clutched the medallion tightly in one hand. She was nearing the point of no return for telling Evie about her father, and truth be told, she was afraid. She did not know how the news would be received, nor even if her daughter would believe her.

"The inscription is in Circular Gallifreyan, the main written language of the Time Lords. One side is a compass rose and the other says 'I love you.'"

"How do you know Gallifreyan? As far as I know, only one Time Lord is still alive. He's called..." Evie paused and tapped her chin thoughtfully as she struggled to remember what she had learned about Gallifrey while traveling with her mother.

"The Doctor," River finished for her, her voice filled with pain and eyes darkened by emotions that Evie had never seen in her mother before- sadness so strong that she nearly had to take a step back from the weight of it and longing that bled into a hint of desire.

"Ah, yes. The Doctor. I know that most cultures have songs, stories, or at the very least, legends about him. The last of the Time Lords. He travels in a blue box from world, century to century, helping the helpless. His name became synonymous with healer and wise man on Earth and other worlds. He takes companions to travel with him through the stars; he shows them the splendor of the universe..."

"I know, Evalin," interrupted her mother softly. Strangely enough, tears were glistening in her pain-glazed eyes, tracking shining paths down her cheeks.

"Mum, what's wrong?" Understanding dawned in Evie's mind even as she spoke. "You knew him, didn't you. Were you his companion?"

"Something like that," River choked out, pressing the knuckles of the hand not holding her medallion to her lips to stifle her sobs.

Evalin wrapped her arms tightly around her mother. "Did you love him?" River nodded wordlessly, looking more broken than Evie had ever seen. She had always seemed so unbendable, unbreakable, indestructible e. And yet the mere mention of the Doctor shattered her in a way that nothing else could.

Gently as she could, Evie led her mother to the kitchen of their tiny one bedroom apartment they had began to rent merely a month before. As she put a kettle of water on to boil, she continued to talk. "The Doctor seems to have a record of leaving his companions and never looking back. Did he leave you, too?"

"No," she replied simply, wiping the tears from her face and running her hands through her short-cropped light brown curls.

"But then why aren't you still with him, if you loved him? Unless he didn't love you back."

"He loved me as much as I loved him." River gave a quiet, humorless laugh. "Maybe even more. He has two hearts to love with."

"Then why..." Evie began again, only to be silenced by a sharp gesture from her mother.

"I'll explain it all if you will kindly quit interrupting me, sweetie."

"Sorry, Mum," she quickly apologized, ducking her head in a respectful nod.

"I chose to leave the Doctor. It wasn't truly a choice, now that I think about it- I left to protect him. I had something that his enemies could have used against him, other than our love for each other. I never meant for anything like that to happen, but once it did, I knew that I had to leave. It was the most difficult decision that I have ever had to make. My heart shattered and I've never been able to pick up all of the pieces." River smiled sadly at her daughter, willing her to understand the true reason she had left the love of her life.

"Then who is my fath..." River could sense the exact instant that Evie finally connected the dots. "No!" She look two quick steps back, slamming hard into the compact stove, somehow managing to both knock the kettle of water onto the floor and brush her arm across the burner. Her soft cry of pain intermingled with the words, "He can't be...

"The Doctor was my husband and your father!"

**A/N: Don't forget to review the story and give me your thoughts!**


	3. Chapter 3

River stood, only to watch in horror as Evalin collapsed and slid boneless down the front of the stove to the floor. She settled with a soft splash into the steaming water from the fallen kettle.

"Why did you leave?" Evalin began softly, her voice rising and providing an outlet for the intense, blinding rage that was burning a hole in her heart. "How could you? Why couldn't you have at least told me that my father is still alive? I would have had the chance to meet him...we could've been a family together!"

River shook her head as she knelt beside her daughter. "No. That was never a possibility for us."

Horror wrote itself on Evie's angular features and she tugged at her tangled mess of curls with frantic intensity. "He...the Doctor...my father...Daddy...didn't want me?"

The mother and daughter locked eyes for an of shared pain, until River finally looked away and admitted quietly, "The Doctor doesn't know you exist, Evalin. He doesn't know that he has a beautiful daughter with his eyes and his strength."

"How could you not tell him, Professor?" Evalin demanded icily, her tone so formal and distant that it might have belonged to someone else. "He's my father and neither of us knew. You don't have the authority to do that to us..."

"You are the ultimate weapon to use against the Doctor. Imagine the possibilities- at least half Time Lord, able to pilot the TARDIS. If someone had kidnapped you as a baby and raised you to hate him, them you'd be the Doctor's enemy. It would tear him apart if he had to fight his own daughter to survive."

In her mind, Evie was suspended between mindless anger at her mother, so powerful that it erased all that River had done for the girl to protect her and raise her right, and acceptance that her mother had done the right thing. After she could not change the past, right?

"What do you mean, at least half Time Lord? Shouldn't I be exactly half? And how do you know what would have happened if the Doctor had known about me?"

"The Doctor had two companions once," River began, "who fell in love, got married, and had a baby. Of course, a lot more then that happened, like them saving the universe and such, but that hardly matters for what I'm telling you about. The child was conceived on the TARDIS during a flight to another world and time, so her DNA wad changed ever so slightly. She became part Time Lord."

"Was I conceived that way?" Evie interrupted sharply, the colour in her face continuing to drain, leaving her pale and shaking slightly.

"Yes, and that makes you more than half Time Lord. Now, back to the story...the child became a target before she was even born. Devious people, the most evil beings you could imagine, the worst enemies of the Doctor wanted to do what I told you about- use her as the ultimate weapon against him. She was just a baby, and yet they already had such grand plans for her."

"Damn the bloody consequences!" her daughter shouted, punched at the water-soaked floor beneath her with frenzied strength. "I just want to meet my father!"

"You can't, sweetie, not if you value both his and your lives," River replied as calmly as she could.

That was all it took for Evalin to fully break down; she buried her head in her hands, her knuckles bloody from brutally punching the floor. River gathered her in her arms, cautiously at first, not sure how Evie would react, then with more confidence when the girl didn't try to fight back.

They stayed on the floor together for long minutes, River gently rubbing her daughter's tense and shaking shoulders as Evie held on to her for dear life. And yet she shed no tears- as far as her mother remembered, Evalin had never cried in her life, not even when she had bruised her knees as a child or gotten in a fight on the streets.

After she finally expelled the torrent of grief she had been holding in for years, Evie lay quiet in her mother's arms.

"You are getting too big for us to keep doing this, sweetie," River joked weakly, trying to get her girl to smile.

Evie didn't respond except to tighten her grip on her mother. "Is the Doctor the reason you carry that blue notebook everywhere?"

"Yes, and that is why I had forbidden you to even open the cover when you were younger. I'll let you have the book when you are older and more ready for what you're going to find in it."

"Mum, you are the girl in the story, aren't you? The one that the Doctor's enemies tried to steal?"

Rivet gave an involuntary gasp; she hadn't expected her daughter to connect the dots quite so quickly. "How did you...?"

"You said you named me after your mother, Amelia. I know that Amy and Rory Pond, at one time the Doctor's companions, had a child that was kidnapped. Thus, you are Amy and Rory's child, part Time Lord. I guess that makes me about full Time Lord, doesn't it, Mum?" Evie sounded like she was emotionally dead- her voice utterly without inflection, as if another being had taken over and was speaking for her. Her normally bright eyes were dull, focused on a point millions of light-years and milenia in the distance.

"That is why I named you Evalin. In one of Earth's major religions, the first woman created by their God was named Eve. You are the full full blooded Time Lord in thousands and millions of years." River paused to see if her daughter would respond, but the girl didn't make a sound. She just clutched her head in her hand as if warding off a headache.

"The Doctor and I discussed having children," she continued, her voice a bit hesitant. "In fact we talked about it several times. He said he would be happy with whatever I wanted, but I could see how much he wanted a child of his own to play with, to hold, to watch learn to talk and walk..." River let her voice fade into silence as she was caught up in a memory of the Doctor.

Eagerly, the Doctor began to strip off his jacket, throwing it carelessly on the floor behind him. Unbuttoning his shirt, he also discarded it, but left his bow tie and bracers on. When he reached for his belt, River stopped him, drawing his arms around her.

"I thought we were going to have sex," he said, clearly deeply disappointed and doing his best to rearrange his features into a pout.

"Is that all you think about? I thought it was only human males who did that," River teased. She gave him a quick kiss and pulled back, just out of his reach, when he tried to reciprocate.

"I think every male being who is alive thinks about sex, especially when a beautiful woman is in the room with them."

She pretended to be surprised. "Doctor, I think you just called me beautiful."

He again tried to kiss her, but she drew slightly away again. "Is something wrong?" he asked, worry furrowing deep lines in his forehead.

"You said we were going to talk about having children," River prompted.

"Right now? Do we absolutely have to discuss this right at this instant?" The Doctor gave a dramatic sigh and crossed his arms over his chest, which was surprisingly muscular given how thin he was.

"Every other time you told me we would talk about it, you ended up sweeping me into bed with you, which isn't such a bad thing," she finished with a smirk, running her eyes up and down his thin frame.

"How about we put this on hold for five minutes and then get back to it?" he cajoled. "I promise we'll talk after we're done."

"Only five minutes, sweetie? What kind of a husband are you? I have needs too."

"All right- ten minutes, then we can talk about whatever is on your mind." He stepped closer to his wife, put his hand on hers and slowly slid it up her arm,over her shoulder, down her back. As he leaned in for a kiss, he whispered, "Deal?"

"Just tell me if you want children, Doctor. Give me a straight answer."

Suddenly serious, he took both of River's hands in his and placed them on the centre of his chest, so that she could feel his two hearts beating. "I want what makes you happy, River, my love. What do you want?"

She frowned. "That isn't a proper answer. Do you or do you not want children?"

"Whatever makes you smile- that is all I want," he insisted. "Now, are we done with this conversation?"

"For now."

The Doctor smiled broadly."Good!" He returned to undoing his belt, humming a tuneless song. River shook her head and also began to undress, feeling none of the annoyance she was showing in her posture. She really hadn't expected a straight answer from him, so she wasn't disappointed with that. And she was definitely never disappointed after having sex with the Doctor, either.

A little over a month and a half later, River found out she was pregnant and ran away from her husband.

"Then why did you run away with me, Mum, if he wanted a child?" Judging from Evie's exasperated tone, she had asked the question several times and gotten no response.

"Like I said earlier, you are a weapon that could destroy the Doctor. You could possibly destroy him just by existing." River reached out to her daughter, but Evie dodged her touch and stood in one smooth motion.

Her eyes flashing with ice-cold anger that ran bone deep, Evalin kept her face free of expression and her voice tightly controlled. "You made the decision based on a what-if that never came to be. What if, by keeping me from knowing my father, you made me into what you fear the most? How could you presume to...?"

"Presume? You ask me how I have the right to presume, girl? I am your mother. I have your best interests in mind and I will do anything to keep you safe. I left the man that I love with all of my heart and soul to keep you safe. I abandoned the only person I ever loved with my whole heart to ensure you weren't used against your father, and you ask how I presume." The resentment River had been carrying for fifteen long years exploded outward, raising her voice to a shrill scream that was packed full of emotion. "I built my life around you!"

"Wow, Mum. I never knew how you really felt about me. Don't hold back- tell me how it really is. What you really think of me." An expression of genuine hurt twisted Evalin's mouth into a frown, and River thought she saw her lips quiver. "I'm sorry that I am the reason you ran away from the Doctor. If I hadn't been born, you'd still be with him. If I died, you could go back to him..."

"Never say that! Never! I couldn't bear to lose another child..."

The very air in the room seemed to freeze as Evie's eyes went wider than her mother had ever seen them go. "Another what?" She grabbed River by the shoulders and shook her. "You had another child?"

"Before I was careful and moved from place to place, beings kept trying to hunt us down. They knew you were special and wanted you... "

"What about your other child?" Evalin demanded. "Why didn't you tell me?"

River again started to cry, sagging against her daughter. "Roman Hunter Song. He was your twin. We were being chased by bounty hunters on mid-20th century Earth and our car...we collided with someone else. He was killed instantly, and I thought you were going to die too. I'm just glad I didn't lose both of you- it would have killed me."

"No," Evie snarled. "This is all too much."

"You wanted to know, sweetie. I tried to teach you that knowledge and pain go hand in hand."

The sympathy in River's voice, accented by her tears, caused something to break deep within Evalin. She wrenched away from her mother, turning in a small circle and murmuring "I need to think. I need to get away," over and over again, like it was her mantra.

"Please, Evie. Don't run. I need your strength."

"Not as much as you seem to need the Doctor." At that instant she remembered the Vortex Manipulator on her right wrist. "I'm leaving for a while- why don't you find him and enjoy a nice holiday together. Just with no pesky children to worry about. Don't worry about me; you taught me perfectly how to take care of myself."

With that, Evalin vanished, leaving River more alone than she had been in years. When she grasped her tracking pendant and reached out to her daughter, she felt nothing. No trace of life, flicker of a heartbeat, or any sign that Evie was alive.

**A/N: Hope you enjoyed the scene with the Doctor and River! (It was my favorite one to write.) Please review and give me your thoughts on how my story is progressing so far! Any and all feedback is appreciated!  
**


	4. Chapter 4

"Your fortune for a credit..."

"Wondering what your family is up to...?"

"Food ordered fresh from your home planet..."

Hundreds and thousands of voices rose into the recycled air and mixed to form a steady roar of sound, an invisible but weighty wall that pressed into Evie's ears. And yet somehow she managed to ignore it all, to tune out the cacophany of noise and settle into a place of peace deep within herself. She felt as if she were present and yet not; as if she were hovering over the crowd and inhabiting jer own body at the same time.

A burly alien, his skin a dark purple and eyes a lighter lavender, roughly knocked into her. "Scuse me," he quickly apologized in a startlingly low voice that seemed to reverberate in Evalin's very bones. "And welcome to Sanctuary."

That was enough to bring her back to reality. "How did you...?"

"You got a lofty look on your face. That's how I knew- if you've been here very long you lose your pride pretty quick. We're all the same here, no one more special than anyone else." He gave her a small, almost apologetic smile, displaying a set of alarmingly sharp teeth. "Now I hope I haven't offended yoy. My name's Javen."

"I'm Ali," Evalin replied, using the nickname she had chosen instead of her proper name. After all, being careful was not a bad thing for the daughter of the last Time Lord. "Do you work here?"

Javen touched the metallic namebadge emblazoned with his name and sector number in several languages. "Yes. I am but one of many who seeks to serve. I must be going, but if you ever need anything or if any beings harass you, come find me. Was nice meeting you, Ali."

"And yoy, Javen." The two waved cordially before the alien trundled off, barely avoiding richocheting off others who found themselved in his path.

Sanctuary. The world where lost souls could find refuge and where the hunted and oppressed would be protected. Or at least that was the first rumourEvie had heard about the place. The reality was much less glamorous, of course.

Instead of being a planet, Sanctuary was a fleet of spaceships of all shapes and sizes docked to a skeletal network of atmosphere-filled tubes and corridors. Escape could be made here, but only if those after you did not put a bounty on your head. A disproportional amount of fortune seekers, bounty hunters, trackers, and ruffians skulked through the walkways and common areas, their eyes scanning for a being with a hefty price hanging over their head.

Evie numbered amoung the ranks of trackers. Mostly, she was conscriped to recover stolen jewelery and other small goods taken by disgruntled employees or jilted lovers. Her current job was no exception- the item was stolen from a very rich man who was willing to part with a quarter of a miilion credits worth of pressed gold bars in return for a job well done. Evalin did not like to track, but it was an easy living for her, and she needed the money. It had been quite a while since she had fled her mother- she figured two or three years. Skipping around time and space confused the amount of time that had probably passed for River, so Evie could only hazard a guess.

The current year was sometime in the 423rd century. Time travel was commonplace for the middle and upper classes of the era, with many travel agencies offering excoursins to the past. However, no one had perfected travel that came anywhere close to the mastery achieved by the lost Gallifreyan civilization, and trips carried large amounts of risk and a not inconsiderable price tag.

For a thief, the times had nevet been better. If they had the money, they could purchase a black market time traveling device, take hold of the item they wanted to steal, and disappear into another time.

A tiny chime sounded in Evalin's left ear, letting her know that the device stowed in the shapeless carryall on her back had aquired the signal of the item she was after. The owner had planted a tracking device on it just in a brave being decided to steal it. Thus, Evie's job was that much easier- she simply had to listen to where the signal tranciever told her to go; the pitch and tone changed as the item moved closer or farther away.

One her hands idly grasped the medallion at her throat. Evalin had deactivated it as soon as she fled her mother and her lies of omission. It had been a simple matter of pushing down on one of the circles of Gallifreyan script and twisting the outer rim of the pendant until it popped in half. She removed the strand of her mother's hair and stowed it was, in case she ever had need of it again.

The tracking device gave a series of sharp chirps, letting Evie know that her quarry had gone up a level. She was not about to let that much gold get away, and moved toward the transport system.

Evalin crammed onto a lift designed to hold twenty beings comfortable with fifty others. The mix of various languages and the choking humidity of the air drove her back to the calm place in her mind, where she felt like an observer, as if she was gazing down on Sanctuary. Power filled her veins and for a long instant time itself was laid out before her, and she saw the space station as it was and how it would be in the future.

Dead bodies were scattered on the decks and catwalks of every ship. Blood, red as Earth poppies, green as Taurian sunsets, and every other colour imagineable drained onto the grated flooring, dripping down to lower levels. Figures in the shadows killed and killed some more. They were searching for someone, a special person who could serve their cause and help them achieve destrution on a scale so grand and widespread that it sent a stab of icey fear into Evie's heart. The face as the being they wanted began to reveal itself- glinting, amused eyes, dangerous smile- and them she was cut off from the vision so abruptly that she nearly cried out.

Claustraphobia unlike any Evie had ever felt before overwhealmed her senses and she felt as if she suffocating. Thankfully, the doors of the lift opened just as the panic began to fully assert itself, and Evalin ended up being on of the first out of the overcrowded space, elbowing her way through the crush to escape.

A positive chime sounded in her ear and she smiled to herself. From the frequency of the noise, she was fifty metres of her target. She craned her neck; even though she had sprouted up a handful of centimetres since leaving her mother, she still was not tall enough to see above everyone in the crowd.

Bright gold, glimmering like a mirage in the ship's almost clinical interior lighting, snagged Evie's eyes. She had a visual and began to slide around the knots of beings when she could and through the press when she could not. Several beings shouted angrily after her or tried to trip her, but she waved them off the most pleasant smile she could summon.

Now five metres from her target, Evalin pulled her carryall off her back and extracted a datapad. Battered and over five standard years old, it was nothing fancy- she cpuld send messages, access public databases and take pictures. The camera setting was the once she selected; to get her payment, all Evie needed to do was send picture evidence to the item's owner and assist in reaquireing it from the theives that had stolen it.

As she raised the utterly nondescript datapad crowd, she briefly locked eyes with the thief. He was young, maybe between eighteen and twenty-two standard years old and carried the stolen property on his shoulders- all one and a half metres of her.

Ivva Aboam was the daughter of Zalandi jewel tycoon Isri and his property, as all females of that society were their father's, at least until they were married, upon which time they became their husband's property. She suspected that the girl had run away with the human male to avoid an arranged marriage. While it did not sit good with Evie, a job was a job and it had to be done to put money in her pocket for food and other expenses. She was not there to get personally involved.

With a slight feeling of guilt that Evie easily pushed down, she began to press down the button that would seal Ivva's fate, only to feel a hand grasp her elbow. "Please do not do this, girl." The voice was soft and silibant, rich with a sophisticated accent that Evie could not place.

"Why not? The job is open to all trackers and I'm the first one to get a shot at the gold." Evalin was shocked at how cold and calloused that she sounded, and wondered for the barest instant if her mother would still recognize her.

"This choice would put you on the very path you fear to tread, in the darkest of alleyways and on most desolate of roads."

Evie laughed softly and again prepared to take the picture. "And how would you know that?"

"I know many things, Time Girl. I am burdened with the gift of sight." The speaker tugged effortlessly on Evie's arm until they faced eachnother. She had to tilt her head back to meet the alien's eyes- she stood nearly two and a half metres tall. Her skin was mottled milky white and glistening silver, and her fine hair, teased up into a corona, was so pale it barely seemed to have any substance to it at all.

It was her eyes, though, the intensity of the obviously blind orbs, opaque and swirling like iredescent alabastar and threaded through with tiny veins, that pinned Evie in place. The woman seemed to be gazing into her very soul, and Evalin let the datapad slip from her hands and shatter on the deck as she tried to fight the strange sensation.

"You are blind and yet you see so clearly," Evie breathed.

"Indeed. I am Shria, a Seer and a Teller of Futures. Would you like to know how you die?"

**A/N: Chapter four is finally done! Yay! I'll try to update as soon as I can. Don't forget, my dear readers, to review my little story. Reviews give me the encouragement to keep writing; I like to hear what you think of my dialogue, characters, and whatever else you happen to have thoughts on. Please please please don't be cryptic, though. Just say straight up what you think of it. Thanks again and I love you guys!**


End file.
